There’s plenty of time for pumpkin yet.
We asked three local beverage pros what they’d dare to do with a peach at summer’s close. Here’s what they suggest you shake up in your kitchen as soon as possible, full recipe notes included:
Peach Pony Club
Katie Stuart, known to the internet as Bar Daddy, approaches bartending as a performance art. “I try to make every drink as entertaining as possible for my guests,” Stuart says. “A little flair, a fun shake and great banter always elevates my guests’ experience as they watch their drinks being concocted.” Stuart started creating mixology videos in 2020, when in-person bartending opportunities were abruptly taken off the table by the pandemic. Five years later her online audience numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and you can find her in-person behind the bar at Twin Hickory Tavern.
For Style Weekly, Stuart crafted a “simple yet elegant” summer cocktail pairing peach puree with peppercorn-infused vodka. “Infusing a spirit is a great way to make a simple cocktail a little fancier,” she says.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz peppercorn infused vodka*
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz peach purée
1/2 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
Fresh cracked pepper for garnish
Tools:
Shaker tin
Strainer
Martini glass
Pepper grinder
*To make the infused vodka: mix whole peppercorns with vodka and let sit for two days, shaking occasionally. The vodka will take on a coppery color and spicy taste. Strain out the peppercorns and you’re ready to go. Shake all ingredients in a shaker tin and then double strain into a coupe or martini glass. Garnish with a lemon peel and cracked pepper.
Stuart says, “The best place to drink this cocktail is definitely in an inflatable pool in your backyard, or up on The Nest [Twin Hickory Tavern’s rooftop bar] with me!”
Peach-ginger cocktail with rosemary salt
Beth Dixon’s beverage consulting company, Salt and Acid, is named for her most commonly given advice for adjusting the balance of flavors in a drink: more of both. Salt and Acid provides menu consultation, bar staff training, mixology classes and private events, drawing on knowledge Dixon gained in her years behind the bars of many Richmond restaurants.
“Peaches can be delicate, yes,” Dixon says. “But peach also plays so well with bold flavors like spices and nuts and even tropical juices.” In this recipe, she pairs them with rosemary and ginger.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz tequila blanco (Dixon uses Belle Isle’s new Rio J)
1/2 oz peach syrup*
1/2 oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur
3/4 oz lime juice, freshly squeezed
Optional: Two dashes ginger bitters
Garnish: Rosemary salt rim* + candied ginger
Tools:
Shaker tin
Strainer
Blender
*To make peach syrup use a 2:2:1 ratio of sugar, sliced peaches and water, measured by weight. Add ingredients to a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir until all sugar has dissolved then remove from heat. Let the mixture cool before straining. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks.
*To make rosemary salt: Add 10 grams of dehydrated rosemary to a blender and blend until broken up into small bits. Add one cup kosher salt and pulse until well-combined.
Add tequila, peach syrup, ginger liqueur and lime juice to a cocktail shaker, then add ice and shake until well-chilled. Strain into an ice filled glass rimmed with rosemary salt (dip the rim of the glass in peach syrup, then dip in salt before pouring the drink.) Garnish with candied ginger.
Dixon suggests serving this drink on a “crisp late summer or early fall evening, on your front porch or by a backyard fire.”
Pike Place
Presently the beverage director for new sleek new seafood restaurant Slack Tide, Steve Yang has devised craft cocktail menus for several notable Richmond restaurants. In 2018, Yang became the first Virginian bartender to compete in the United States Bartenders’ Guild World Class competition. He has competed several times since, and in 2023 was awarded the “Bartender’s Bartender” award by his fellow competitors.
The classic cocktail recipes on Slack Tide’s menu are named after fish markets. This variation on a Cuban daiquiri honors Pike Place in Seattle, notable for its vendors’ longstanding tradition of throwing fish (to each other, and to customers.) Yang’s Pike Place is made with a technique called throwing, a long pour between two shaker tins that results in a mix midway between shaken and stirred.
When pairing drinks with seafood, the minerality of the drink is especially important, Yang says. The Pike Place combines slate cordial with seasonally rotating stone fruit, including peach.
Ingredients:
2 oz rum (Slack Tide uses Ten To One Caribbean white rum)
3/4 oz stone fruit and slate cordial*
3/4 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz lime juice
Lime wheel for garnish
Tools:
Shaker tin
Coupe glass
Combine the ingredients in one cup of a shaker tin, and pour into the other, holding the cups as far apart as you dare. Serve in a coupe glass.
*To make the slate cordial, wash a piece of slate well and boil for about an hour. You’re making mineral water, though it may look like you’re making stone soup. Yang, who likes to get minerality directly from the source, uses this technique to make infusions with oyster shells, concrete, bricks and more. It’s a way to solve the creative challenge of getting mineral notes into a cocktail that wines pick up from the stone the grapes are grown on.
Blend the slate mineral water (500 grams) with sliced stone fruit (100 grams peach) and sugar (500 grams) plus 25 grams of citric acid. Strain.
A patio is the place to enjoy this drink, in Yang’s opinion. Slack Tide has a nice one, or you can source your own. It need not be made of slate.
